(CNN) – The U.S. intelligence network’s most sensible election security official said on a Friday that China “prefers” a result in which President Donald Trump is not re-elected in November and Russia seeks to “denigrate” former President Joe Biden’s targeting offer.
“We believe China prefers that President Trump, whom Beijing considers unpredictable, not win re-election,” William R. Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said in an update of the election threat landscape by November. Choice.
“China has expanded its influence efforts by November 2020 into the U.S. political environment, put pressure on political figures it considers to be contrary to China’s interests, and deflects and counters Criticism from China.”
“We believe that Russia is employing a number of measures to basically denigrate former Vice President Biden and what he considers an anti-Russian ‘establishment’. This is consistent with Moscow’s public denunciation of him as vice president for his role in the Obama administration. policy on Ukraine and its help for the anti-Putin opposition in Russia,” Evanina added.
Evanina also said Iran seeks to “undermine U.S. democratic institutions, President Trump, and divide the country.”
In essence, Evanina’s Friday afternoon placed two of America’s largest wartime parties on opposite sides of the election: Russia for Trump and China for Biden.
The most sensible counterintelligence official is also the clearest that the intelligence network has reported that Russia prefers one candidate over another in the 2020 race.
At a news convention at his country club in Bedminster, New Jersey, Friday night, Trump gave the impression of being reluctant to settle for the findings of the intelligence community.
When asked if he believed in the information, the president replied, “It may simply be. I mean, it can be a lot.”
“I think the last user Russia needs to see in effect is Donald Trump because no one has ever been harder with Russia, ever,” Trump said, adding later, “the last thing Russia needs, China needs and Iran needs.” is for Donald Trump to win.”
When asked what he would do in response, Trump didn’t propose any concrete action and said, “Well, let’s take a closer look.”
He continued his unfounded attacks on mail-in voting, arguing that this is the “greatest risk” to electoral security and that it is simple for a foreign force to forge ballots. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud related to mail voting.
Evanina’s use of the word “denigration” is also the term used through the intelligence network in his 2017 assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an “influence campaign” aimed at harming Hillary Clinton. The intelligence network also concluded that Russia’s “clear preference” for Trump and aspired to help him, an assessment Trump rejected.
Russia’s goals were to “denigrate” Clinton, according to the 2017 intelligence network report.
The prospect of interference in 2020 will further control U.S. defenses opposing foreign interference, which Trump has minimized by rejecting any suggestion that Kremlin influence played a role in his election.
CNN reported Friday that U.S. intelligence officials had presented data to lawmakers and presidential crusades that Russia was a disdain crusade for Biden.
Biden’s crusader advisors have already discussed Evanina’s assessment, according to a user close to the discussions. The team focused in particular on the semantics of the relationship with the former vice president, noting that Russia unambiguously seeks to “denigrate” Biden, while China simply “prefers” a defeat from Trump.
Evanina was criticized by Democratic leaders last month for her latest warning against Russia, China and Iran’s efforts to interfere in the November election. Lawmakers said theirs was not “far enough” in providing the American public with data on foreign attempts to influence the election.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said Friday that Evanina stepped forward by adding more details, but “still treats 3 actors with other intentions and functions as equivalent threats to our democratic elections.”
A workplace official at the Director of National Intelligence told CNN that “there is no specific rank or order through which risk actors are listed” in Evanina’s statement.
“Each of these adversaries poses a risk to our elections and it is imperative that we all paint in a country combined as a country to fight them,” the official told CNN on a Friday.
The official said the evidence is “the recent, accurate and objective maximum data on electoral threats that the intelligence network has to offer in an unclassified framework today.”
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said Friday that Evanina “specifies” that “Russia’s efforts to influence Russia remain a significant threat,” adding that it would be a “serious mistake to forget the developing threats posed through China and Iran.”
The director of the Agency for Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security (CISA), Christopher Krebs, praised Evanina’s transparency, but in particular spoke of Russia and not other countries through the name.
“We have long said that Russia and other countries are targeting our elections,” Krebs said on a Friday. “We knew it was true in 2016, we know it’s true today and we know they’ll continue to review to intervene.”
In a joint statement, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s most sensible Republican and Democrat, the senses. Marco Rubio and Mark Warner on Friday thanked Evanina for providing more threat data and encouraged the intelligence network to “continue to make this data available.”
The two senators also called on “political leaders of all tendencies to run from militarizing intelligence problems for political purposes, as this promotes the divisive goals of our adversaries.”
But on Friday, Biden and Trump’s campaigns responded to the news of Evanina’s caution by launching attacks on others.
Biden’s crusader foreign policy adviser Tony Blinken accused Trump of “inviting, encouraging, and even attempting to publicly and continually coerce foreign interference in the U.S. election.”
“Joe Biden, on the other hand, has led the fight opposed to foreign interference for years, and has refused to settle for any foreign curtains earmarked for him in this election, anything Donald Trump and his crusade have not achieved on several occasions. Blinken said.
Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said the Trump administration held Moscow accountable and “tougher with Russia than any other administration in history,” and also attacked Obama’s former national security agent, Susan Rice, who is a possible vice president of Biden.
“In 2016, it was Democrats who actively sought the help of foreign citizens in an unsuccessful effort to defeat President Trump, and it would come as no surprise for Democratic agents to return in vain once. If anyone had to face questions about foreign interference in 2020, this is Joe Biden’s campaign,” Murtaugh said.
On Friday, Evanina said: “Many foreign actors have a preference for the winner of the election, which they make explicit through a series of open and personal actions; covert influence efforts are rarer.”
Giving an example from Russia to “denigrate” Biden, Evanina accused Ukrainian pro-Russian lawmaker Andriy Derkach of “spreading accusations of corruption” to undermine Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party.
Evanina also said that some with ties to the Kremlin were going to bolster Trump’s candidacy on social media and Russian television.
And China’s public rhetoric in recent months has been “increasingly critical” about the Trump administration’s reaction to coronavirus, the recent closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, and actions related to Hong Kong, among other issues, Evanina noted.
“Beijing recognizes that all these efforts can simply be the presidential race,” Evanina said.
Evanina’s evaluation comes two days after the publication of a new State Department report that accused Russia of conducting a complicated disinformation and propaganda campaign, which uses approaches and adds Kremlin-aligned news sites to publicize its agenda.
The report focuses specifically on the Russian government’s use of this network to publicize incorrect information about the coronavirus pandemic as it spreads around the world. However, it did mention incorrect Russian information in the context of the 2020 US presidential election, as it is within the mandate of the Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), which focuses on foreign propaganda and misinformation directed at a foreign audience.
This story was updated with Mitch McConnell’s comments.
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